1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a device for attachment to an elongated member, especially an apparatus for securing a shower caddy to a shower arm to which a showerhead is attached, and more particularly to a clip structure and sleeve structure for securely but removably attaching a device such the shower caddy to an elongated member such as a shower arm.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many shower caddies are known having a metal rack with a back piece having an upper loop for extending over a shower arm to hold the shower caddy in place, with the shelves and other components of the shower caddy accessible beneath the shower arm. However, the portion of the prior art devices for holding the shower caddy to the shower arm are ineffective for a number of reasons. If the metal device itself engages the shower arm, it is likely to slip off the shower arm or cause the shower caddy to swing on the shower arm, making the shower caddy unstable and often ineffective since devices held on the shower caddy can fall to the floor, tip over, have their contents spill out or to have the entire shower caddy fall off the shower arm. In other instances the shower caddy has a narrow upper loop for extending over the shower arm, the loop being generally semi-circular for engaging the shower arm in a fairly tight manner. Sometimes the foregoing loop can be attached into a larger loop of the shower caddy and may be less noticeable since its primary purpose is often to keep the shower caddy steady while the main loop applies the weight of the shower caddy and its contents to the shower arm. Even in this situation, the shower caddy is likely to swing about the shower arm when it or its contents are touched by a person, and this could not only make possible the tipping over of jars and other equipment held in the shower caddy but also could cause scratching of the shower arm by the loop.
Efforts have been made to enable the engagement of the relatively narrow loop with the shower arm in a manner which both protects the shower arm from being scratched by the loop and to hold the shower caddy in place. This has involved making the loop of relatively thin wire having open ends and providing a tubular cover for the loop made of plastic. The plastic is intended to tightly grip the shower arm since the plastic is flexible and can fit tightly over the shower arm to both prevent the swaying of the shower caddy and to protect the shower arm from being scratched or otherwise marred. However, even this supposed solution was not effective. The loop had to be long enough to substantially surround the shower arm, and this made the threading of the loop across the shower arm difficult due to the friction between the metal loop, the interior of the plastic tube and to the limited flexibility of the tube. Since shower caddies are made in large numbers, a simple and fast requirement for putting the loop protector in place was required. One possible solution had been to provide a plastic tube with a longitudinal slit running along the edge of the tube (longitudinal means running parallel to the longitudinal axis of the tube, even though the tube in many instances would be curved). However, in practice it was found that such loops slipped off of the loop. This is particularly true in those cases where the clip had straight portions near its ends onto which the loop was inserted. The protective loop can be slipped off the shower caddy during handling of the shower caddy at the factory where it is being made, during handling when the shower caddies are packed for shipment from a factory to the customer, and by a user of the shower caddy.
Although the present invention relates primarily to shower caddies being mounted on shower arms, the present invention could be used to attach any item to be suspended from or otherwise supported on an elongated member. The elongated member could be a cylinder, but it could also have other cross sections with various perimeters such as hexagonal, octagonal, oval, regular or irregular perimeters, etc.